Orlando Bloom

Attention East Coast Hero Complex readers! We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be heading to Manhattan to bring you a special free preview screening of “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” director Peter Jackson’s anticipated final installment in his latest trilogy of films based on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. Stars Richard Armitage, Lee Pace, Luke Evans and Orlando Bloom will be on hand for a Q&A following the IMAX screening. The event will begin at 7 p.m. on Dec. 11 at New York’s AMC 34th Street 14 & IMAX. “Five Armies,” which arrives in theaters Dec. 17, picks up where last year’s “The Desolation of Smaug” ends, with dwarf king Thorin (Armitage) and company, accompanied by Martin Freeman’s good-natured hobbit Bilbo Baggins, having reclaimed the treasure of their lost homeland Erebor from the evil dragon Smaug (Benedict […]

When it came time to craft “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” the second installment in their latest trilogy of movies based on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, filmmaker Peter Jackson and his screenwriting partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens had a decision to make. The story, as they saw it, was crying out for a dynamic female character. So, they invented one. With the film arriving in theaters Friday, audiences soon will have the opportunity to meet Evangeline Lilly’s Tauriel, the first character entirely crafted by Jackson and his creative counterparts for the screen. She’s a fierce warrior, the captain of the guard in the forest of Mirkwood, and she’s apt to be controversial, merely because she represents perhaps the greatest digression yet from Tolkien’s classic texts. Hero Complex caught up with Boyens to discuss Tauriel in greater detail, […]

Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Orlando Bloom and more stars of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” are expected to walk the red carpet this evening at the film’s Los Angeles premiere. Can’t be at the Dolby Theater tonight? Tune in to the live video stream here on Hero Complex, beginning at 6 p.m. PST. “The Desolation of Smaug,” due in theaters Dec. 13, is the second installment of director Peter Jackson’s planned trilogy based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. The movie sees Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) continue along on his journey to assist the company of dwarfs led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) reclaim their lands and the treasure now hoarded by the dragon Smaug (Cumberbatch). Along the way they encounter a host of new friends and foes — including the valiant Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), the first character wholly invented […]

“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” director Peter Jackson has announced plans to preview footage from the new film at a “global fan celebration” that will be simulcast in theaters and feature interviews with cast members including Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace and Luke Evans. The event will take place Monday, Nov. 4, with Jackson and cast members gathering at satellite-linked theaters in Los Angeles, New York, London and Wellington to screen footage from the Dec. 13 release and answer questions in front of a live audience. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper will host the event from New York, where actors Richard Armitage, who plays dwarf Thorin Oakenshield, and Bloom, who is set to reprise his “Lord of the Rings” role as Legolas Greenleaf, are set to appear. Lilly, who plays a new elf named Tauriel created for the film, […]

A barbarian has needs — a sword, a shield and roughly 56 chicken breasts a week. That’s what Jason Momoa ate while filming “Conan the Barbarian,” this summer’s big-screen reboot of the series that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger’s action movie career in 1982. Over a few months in 2010, Momoa, a 6-foot-4-inch Hawaiian actor and model, added about 30 pounds of muscle to his 205-pound frame to play two high-profile, bare-chested plunderers — Conan and Khal Drogo, the 7-foot-tall warrior-king marauding on HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Momoa isn’t the only actor whose T-shirts have gotten a lot tighter recently: Dwayne Johnson packed 30 pounds onto his already brawny 6-foot-4-inch frame to grapple as a lawman opposite meaty Vin Diesel in “Fast Five.” Chris Hemsworth gained so much bulk to wield “Thor’s” giant, magic hammer convincingly that his costume didn’t fit. And […]

Orlando Bloom is ready to slide back in the saddle as the elf-prince Legolas from the “The Lord of the Rings” movies for Peter Jackson’s upcoming two-part adaptation of “The Hobbit.” It’s a move that may irk some die-hard fans of the J.R.R. Tolkien novels — Legolas does not appear in the bookshelf version of “The Hobbit,” a tale set 60 years before “The Lord of the Rings” unfolds. “Ten years ago, Orlando Bloom created an iconic character with his portrayal of Legolas,” Jackson said in an announcement on his Facebook page. “I’m excited to announce today that we’ll be revisiting Middle Earth with him once more. I’m thrilled to be working with Orlando again. Funny thing is, I look older — and he doesn’t! I guess that’s why he makes such a wonderful elf.” Bloom, who next appears as the […]